Jedi Academy
by Helga Schwarzbaum
Summary: Ben Solo's gradual descent into the Dark Side during his padawan days.
1. He is having the same dream, again

Glimpses of Ben Solo's past at the Jedi Academy i.e. the Jedi temple in the last year prior to his fall to the Dark Side. Politics, intrigues, reflections and family disputes. We (and the next 3 generations probably) will get a thorough analysis of why Ben turned to the Dark Side through comics, animated series and novelizations, and this is mine.

Somehow, I can't help but feel for this over-grown man-child.

* * *

He is having the same dream, again.

She appears in the darkness before him, her face so brightly illuminated he can barely discern her features.

The feeling of recognition is so potent that it takes his breath away.

However, although it appears she runs towards him, she stops mere feet from him and falters.

Something prevents her from coming to him.

There is an air of loss surrounding her, almost as tangible as the bright light that encircles her.

"Wait for me, sweetheart," he utters, again surprised at how much intense compassion just one simple word can have.

"Where are you?" She screams as if from afar, although she seems to be very near him.

The distant clash of weapons and battle cries behind him remind him of an imminent danger that looms over both of them, but for some reason, he feels she is in a more of a danger than he is.

Or perhaps it's just his intense desire to protect her from the world - he was a sappy romantic in his adolescence.

The girl makes another uncertain step in his direction. Her face slowly turns to him and features start forming on her.

And just as he thinks that she finally wakes up to the realization who he is, it is he who is awaken, and quite crudely at that.

"Wake up, M'Lord," Irin's grating, freshly mutated voice snaps him from the gentle haze of her presence.

The scrawny boy with hawk-like nose sneers at him, and Ben soon realizes why.

He embraces his crumbled sheets beneath him, and drools over his crushed pillow. The awkward pose unmistakably resembles a lover's embrace, and Irin, a rogue kid who grew up on the rough streets of Cardota City, is very well acquainted with various… bodily reactions.

And there is a tension down there, an embarrassing tension barely covered under the sheets and his softly woven Jedi pants.

The rage replaces shame. Irin's is the first neck he successfully Force chokes.

The rogue boy makes an admirable attempt to defend himself, but the resistance makes Ben even madder and more focused.

 _You're dead, you little punk_ , Ben hisses into boy's mind.

And as Irin's mocking face turns purple, his uncle barges in through the door.

"Ben, what are you doing?!" He shrieks, and with a flick of a finger, the choke is broken.

Like a slap in the face. Not a moment of privacy in the Jedi temple.

Ben's lips almost twist into a very appropriate: _He started it!,_ but the expression on Luke's face tells him it will only make things worse.

He was, after all, the most powerful among the dozen of apprentices Luke singlehandedly picked. And Luke definitely prepares him for a sort of a leadership role.

And that preparation includes the highest number of penalties and penances per capita, as compared to anyone else - Irin included.

Ben suspects Luke has something of a soft spot for the Cardotan delinquent, Irin being an abandoned child of smugglers who affiliated with the Empire much more often than they did with the rebels. In the years after the Galactic Peace Treaty was sealed and the New Republic established in Hosnian system, they simply left the toddler behind in a panicking exodus from the city, fearing the retribution from the victory drunken masses.

Ben also suspects that Luke is growing weary with this unruly bunch he salvaged from across the galaxy.

Only truly non-trouble making are the two girls - one young Twi'lek, intensely beautiful and flexible like the rest of her kind always is, sapphire blue eyes on a perfectly oval face. But alas, she is completely disinterested with the same sex. She left her girlfriend on Lothal and she treats every male _padawan_ like a pestering annoyance.

The other is a frail albino girl from Tatooine, short-sighted and a mute. She is so timid and cautious in the sun that it reduces her to nothing more than a shadow-like presence in their midst. She only communicates with Luke, the Twi'lek and only so often with Ben, avoiding all eye contact with him. She is actually very intelligent and a sort of a book-worm like he is - her sensitive skin isn't compatible with the unforgiving suns of Tatooine, so her parents spare her from any outdoor work and leave her in the confinement of her small room with her books and her Force sensitivity.

Ben senses they dispatched her to the academy a little too eagerly - there is no use of a child that can't contribute to the farm.

Her position makes him like her even more, finding it strangely similar to his own. And on top of that, somewhere under the sediments of her vast timidity, he feels she has a pure, girlish crush on him. It does a lot of good to his sensitive adolescent ego.

Strange she didn't mind his ears, though. He was really self-conscious of those ears.

"Thinking about your girlfriend, aye?" Irin's triangular face appears from the top of the grove.

The punk really has a death wish.

"Shut up," Ben barks at him, but restrains himself from fist-fighting with Irin. "You earned me a month's worth of scrubbing water closets".

"Always eager to please, M'Lord," Irin grins and makes a mock-bow.

Ben raises his eyes and his expression is obviously such that even Irin has to flinch. As he recoils back, his shirt pulls down and to some satisfaction, Ben notices dark purple bruises on his neck where his hands were, hypothetically.

"You should put some ointment on that," Ben says, imitating concern. "You don't want to go like that around. It makes your ugly face even uglier."

Irin frowns. He hates when this entitled brat shows that amount of swagger.

"At least I don't parade around with TIE fighter on my head."

Ben is already on the verge of cracking his skull open, when the pommel of Luke's saber hits Irin at the back of his head. It wasn't a powerful blow - Luke sent the saber flying as soon as he noticed the commotion and let it hit the unruly student sideways.

Soon they're both scrubbing sewers, only on the opposite sides of the temple.

Other students now have to make after-hour shifts at watching over them. Needless to say, it does wonders for Ben's already shaky popularity. The Twi'lek openly yawns. Others wrinkle their noses and don't even try to conceal the endless grunts and small curses for having to baby-sit Solo.

The only one who enjoys the assignment is the albino girl, Jessa Schimbke (Schimbie for short), and only when she's with Ben.

And even she is giggling silently at the sight.

That girl from his dreams will be his undoing.


	2. Reaching out

I feel a little bit uneasy around the age-gap, but Ben is really very immature emotionally - and he's painfully aware of this. Thus, once he sees you-know-who, although he is inexplicably drawn to her, he expresses more brotherly than romantic feelings at first (and no, that doesn't mean she is Skywalker-Solo-Kenobi in this fanfiction - I am GoT fan, but not that sort of a fan). Other than that, Ben reminds me somewhat of wizard Ged from Earthsea. Needless to say, the whole Earthsea religion of bad vs. good magic is a parallel of Dark vs. Light Side of the Force.

* * *

In the ensuing days, he really tries to control the visions. He should talk to Luke about the meaning of his lucid dreaming, but is almost immediately discouraged. How on planet can he talk about something that the old veteran can discard as meaningless, as petty boyish twilight fantasies? Or even worse, what if he explicitly prohibits Ben from indulging in those dreams? It is a never-ending torment: on one hand, he has a burning desire not to fail. He takes great pride in his meticulousness and in his powers. Perhaps the dreams are just that - a perfunctory activity of his nerves and a convulsion of his body struggling against the vows of celibacy. But as soon as his rational mind starts deconstructing the thing as mere physiological deception, her radiant presence ignites in his memory and he surrenders again. His nights become a pendulum swinging between the intense yearning to see her once again and anxiety he will be rendered weak once more. It sparks bouts of insomnia which he tries to put under control by reading the Jedi texts and writing down detailed manuals on how to bleed the Dark Side from the blade. It is a fascinating lesson passed on from Luke, one he personally likes the most - although the chances for this to ever again become necessary are slim to none.

He sighs. The glorious days of the Jedi order are long gone. There is no remaining living Sith in the existence. The new Jedi order of his uncle wields much power and of diverse forms, but it's only mental acrobatics, nothing more. His boyish fantasies of fighting the Empire and defeating the most powerful Sith dissipate in the mundane routine.

One night, it dawns on him. He might find a middle way, a royal way so they say. He will find out whether the girl is real or not - he will meditate in the Force. He is quite capable of doing it - theoretically. It was prohibited to use it without Luke's approval and presence, but Ben has to know. And after all, he is his oldest and most powerful Force user - he feels sure enough about his powers and his knowledge. Ben sneaks out from his cabin and using the night and the exhaustion of his fellow students, he goes to the slick plinth stone, a convergence in the Force, to enhance his meditation. The night is old and unusually dark for the planet with two lunar type satellites, since both have already set behind the edge of the horizon.

Ben reaches out and focuses. He searches for her in the Light Side. Millions upon millions of Light Side users since time immemorial come his way like candles burning in the dark. He goes through all of them and his open mind wanders. The light representing his namesake, Ben Kenobi, grows before him and Ben tenses at this peculiar vision. In what way is she connected to the old Jedi master? "Her first steps", the distant voice murmurs. He frowns, unsure what to make of the vision, but is at the same time delighted. A powerful Light Side user, and a beautiful girl, all at the same time - a pupil Luke is yet unaware of. His heart swells with pride - he saw something his powerful Master didn't. Ha! He knew those dreams couldn't be just his synapses firing away randomly. He smiles, his eyes closed. The Force pulls him further, almost like he managed to zero in on her. There is a dim light now in the place of many brightly burning ones. And cold. His breath freezes in the air. Ben tenses and frowns. He almost thinks he did something essentially wrong, when something in that darkness moves.

Something human and familiar. A light, albeit a dim one. A glow rod.

An unruly bundle of brown hair and sun-kissed face of a girl, no more than 15 years of age. She looks into the darkness, visibly unsettled. Ben feels the old kind of familiarity again and is transfixed with her face. A wide face that inspires trust: prominent cheekbones, delicate nose and almond shaped eyes, brown irises with fireflies of gold and green. He finds that face so beautiful that he is at loss with words. The same girl from his vision, but by the looks of her, the visions are those of future: the girl of today is somewhat younger and instigates more tender and more brotherly feelings in him. The vision he had is set perhaps five years from this point – something has happened in between. Some kind of change. An awakening both in him and in her. But then he notices something else - trail of tears on both sides of her face. The poverty of her surroundings. The loneliness. Layers of old blankets around her, and she's still freezing. It's some sort of a desert. He accompanied his uncle to Tatooine more than once so he can unmistakably recognize that sort of cold.

"Where are you?" Her shaky voice breaks from the other side. "Why haven't you come for me?"

"I have come for you," he says way more ardently than he intended, but she doesn't seem to hear.

"I'm so alone," she whispers and her lower lip starts trembling uncontrollably. "I tried to stay brave, but I'm not. I miss you. Please, come back."

Her head falls on her chest. He can't see her tears, but her shoulders are shaking. A silent sob escapes her.

Her plea is so heart-wrenching that he feels tears rolling from his face as she speaks. He wants so badly to be that someone she's waiting for, but her glazed eyes tell him she looks through him and expects someone else entirely. His heart sinks. There is a pang of wounded ego deep inside his 23-years old heart, but he immediately reprimands himself over his vanity. _She is just a young girl, a child,_ he thinks. _You fool, can't expect for the whole world to love you! Even your own parents find you tiresome, a difficult child. Half of the Academy either mocks you or resents you. Luke tolerates you, but doesn't know what to make of you!_ But the old tempest waxing in his mind quickly wanes as he is once again drawn inexorably to her. She's untrained and completely unaware of the Force in her, lying dormant. _Perhaps it's for the better_ , he thinks. He is weary of the Jedi academy. He was weary the moment he came in. This place felt like a prison, not like home. And homeward he couldn't go. The political intrigue made sure of it and his parents sealed the deal with their split.

He tried to communicate to Han that he was unjustly accused of that crime he didn't commit – but Solo was preoccupied running away from Kanjiklub. And even more unsettling – he was not running away from the smugglers, he was running away from facing him, his own son. He has already condemned him in his mind.

A long time ago.

His son's outbursts frightened him; he had no patience for them. And there was something ingrained in him that was essentially impossible for Han to comprehend - the ancient eyes on a round-cheeked, soft-haired young boy. His uncontrolled powers. His unpredictable temper, as he grew older. Indeed, he has given up on him a long time ago, finding his usual business and training young pilots a more rewarding and straightforward experience.

"I am lonely, too," he whispers to the wind. He would expect the Force to subside and leave them both to their own personal pain, but it doesn't. Something almost sadistic about it – he can still see her shaking miserably. And he himself is helpless. He'd like to put an arm around her shoulders, calm her down, wipe away her tears. Make her feel less alone. Teach her about the ways of the Force – or don't. No matter how cramped and poor her room looked, it still felt a lot more like home than his tidy Jedi cabin. Every segment of that image is filled with evidence of her quirky, restless spirit – numerous etchings on the rusted metal wall, signifying her days on whatever that desert hell-hole is; small pots with peculiar desert flowers; bits and pieces of metal and dismantled devices; a rag doll colored orange, representing a Resistance fighter. Ah, the little girl likes the Resistance. She'd probably be over the moon to meet the Resistance hero no. 1, his mother.

Ben frowns.

He has barely spoken to Leia since he came here and swore he will reduce the contact as years go by. The Jedi prohibited any personal attachment. And if he's dispatched here, he'll be the best Jedi the galaxy has ever witnessed. Even Luke couldn't hide the frightened gaze that permeated here and there under his usually composed and even slightly whimsical demeanor. It made him fill up with a sort of dark pride – but it was a weak substitute for the crushing loneliness he felt.

He is uprooted all of his life, feeling acutely he doesn't belong anywhere in particular. Not with his father's flamboyant company, not with his mother's politically convoluted social circles. Approaching 23, he is a man, but he feels so ill-prepared for what lies ahead that it makes his heart crumble. Han Solo was already an established pirate by now. Kicked out of the pilot academy. Brazen and full of swagger, already in and out of love for who knows how many times. Q'ira, that beautiful Resistance spy from Correllia whose beauty proves Solo had a definite physical type - a petite brunette with almond-shaped eyes, a point of some bitter arguing between him and Leia, who was very much capable of rage and jealousy (although she attributed all of these traits to his father's side of the family). Anakin Skywalker, practically a fully fledged Jedi by the tender age of 18. Reckless and brave. Already married. Leia – a cunning politician, a national leader and a Resistance hero. Luke - a living legend, the savior of the galaxy, that mighty Jedi. And here he is – an overgrown man-child playing Jedi, peeking through a key-hole formed by Force manipulation into this poor girl's world. How pathetic he is. It makes even tips of his earlobes burn with shame.

But it is so hard for him to break the bond, now it is formed. He didn't think it possible. He didn't even think it through. He only needed to see her once again before he goes completely berserk with all the anxiety and insomnia this on and off relation produced.

Her soft sobs cease eventually and he snaps out of his brooding thoughts. She did this more than once – exhausting herself with crying until she was tired enough to fall asleep. _What a miserable existence,_ he thinks. So miserable, in fact, that he reaches out with his hand. No reason in particular – she can't see him, although obviously she felt at least some kind of disturbance in the air. The Force didn't connect them for any reason. The cold air surrounding Jedi temple leaves a trail of goose bumps on his arm. He tries to caress her cheek: that's how close she feels and how desperate he is to comfort her. Or to comfort himself – he doesn't know which and doesn't care.

He can pretend he can feel her inflamed skin. And he almost flinches, a shock-wave spreading through his hand. He can truly _feel_ that feverish, dry skin. The curvature of her cheek. The dried out tears. He's now amazed, frightened and hypnotized all at the same time and can't seem to unglue his hand from her face.

And the girl feels it. Her eyes widen and lit up, and she rubs her face against his palm, absent-mindedly. She probably attributes the sensation to her exhaustion and nerves tensed to a breaking point. But she doesn't back away. Actually, she leans even further into the palm of his hand and smiles. A warm breath against his rough skin.

Ben swallows hard. _May the Force be with me_ , he thinks. Is he doing something terribly wrong? And if he is, why doesn't the Force prevent it? Is it alright if she is unaware he's there?

The girl yawns, languidly. He can feel her sleepy weight pressing his palm down. He panics and retracts his hand, the pressure of her face still imprinted on it. She shudders – the air around her is cold again. But she's so exhausted she has no strength left to process all of this. She is fast asleep even before she hits the bed again.

Ben is left alone and this time, the loneliness at least feels familiar, dull and safe.


	3. But every time he steps into the Light

Ben Solo faces Snoke - again. At this point, he doesn't know the creature's name. Likewise, he doesn't know Rey's (or Kira's).

"Darkness rises and a Light to meet it".

* * *

But every time he steps into the Light, there is a Darkness that follows.

Another familiar voice appears in his mind mere seconds after he leaves the unknown girl to her peaceful sleep. The voice he knows since his childhood – first overlooked by his parents and tutors as a mere case of „imaginary friend", and then... then he learned to keep silent and just listen. The voice comes and goes, disappearing sometimes for months on end and then re-appearing, but never leaving his side altogether. His mother was the only one who ever trembled over this influence, waking up in the middle of the night with a short yell he'd hear even before it resounded through the halls.

 _"Something is amiss,"_ she told Luke, unaware it was her son who was listening too. _"Something is wrong with my boy. I cannot pinpoint what it is, but it is there, I can feel it, Luke."_

 _"It is nothing,"_ the Master Jedi said, with his usual light countenance. _"Everyone is capable of reflecting both the Dark and the Light Side. Don't worry. It's your empathy that confuses you; that, and your love for Ben, Leia. And knowing what Vader did to you, it's only to be expected."_

He cups her shoulders in reassurance, but she is still visibly shaken.

 _"Don't worry, sister,"_ the man smiles. _"I'm here. I'll always be here. Whatever happens, I'll help you. I always have."_

 _"Yes, you always have,"_ she smiles faintly, and the daily routine and his busy schedule takes her away.

Again.

„You grow stronger with each passing day, young Solo," the old voice says and a low roar rolls over his name like a stroke.

Ben springs to his feet as if scorched. He doesn't block the voice, but he doesn't answer either.

He knows perfectly well where this voice is coming from, and its owner doesn't hide its origins, not for a second. It's the Dark Side.

The twilight is grey by now and he can almost feel Luke wiggling in his light sleep, ready to jump to his feet and start the morning lessons in less than one hour. He has to hurry. He has no inclination of cleaning the water closets until the end of his padawan days.

„What do you want?" He asks the voice in his mind.

The creature smiles with a twisted, guttural laughter.

„Me? I want nothing," he says. „I am not so unlike your Jedi ways, young Solo. I am... unattached. Except, I seek an apprentice still. Someone to pass my wisdom and my strength to. Someone to exhalt when my time comes to an end."

Ben frowns.

„It is impossible," he growls. „There are no compromises with the Dark Side."

It is the scholar in him that likes these exchanges. He always wandered what happens beyond – Luke erased all the memory of the Sith and the Dark Side so thoroughly that it left one big gaping hole in the history of the whole galaxy.

And there was something else – the pull to the Dark Side was enticing. The murmuring promise of glory, and power and fame and war. It stirred his bone marrow. It appealed on some deeply burried impulses he was taught to hold bolted down and locked.

The creature laughs again with dark satisfaction.

„And yet," he says. „Here you are. Talking to the Dark Side like it is nothing."

It would be easier if he could see the creature behind the voice. The air before him swirls and tenses. Ocean appears unruly and ominous. The creature is gathering its strength from afar, Ben can feel it acutely. He reaches out instinctively to Anakin's saber and the cold metal feels like burning his flesh, but he doesn't flinch.

„Oh," the voice exclaims, mock-sorrowfully. „You still want to kill me? Perhaps, if you come, you'll have your chance. You'll kill someone who has the powers of many powerful Sith combined. Perhaps then you'll have my strength, but – who knows? Your Jedi master certainly doesn't."

That swirling wind moves to Luke's cabin like a mocking index finger.

„He hates you, you know he does," the voice continues examining Ben's deepest fears. „Each time you grow beyond what he expects, he fears you even more. And that fear pushes him into hatred. You can't realize your full potential here, young Solo. Not while he is still alive."

Ben shudders. He knows there are deep differences between him and his uncle. But murder? Hatred? Betrayal? The Dark Sider is way out of line here.

„That is enough," he growls back and focuses all his attention so he might break the bond.

But creature is far too powerful and Ben soon feels a throbbing pain in his temples. He almost staggers to his knees and releases a small painful yell.

„Now, now," the voice almost purrs. „I didn't intend to hurt you, apprentice. I want you to know the truth – it will liberate you. But first you must come to it willingly. There is a change in the air – can't you feel it? The hypocrysy of the Jedi will soon be shattered and you'll see the truth behind their lies."

„What will you do?" Ben gasps, feeling like parts of his brain matter are being scattered, then again assembled in his skull.

„Me? I'll do nothing," the voice replies and Ben senses genuineness in these words. „The Jedi will be their own undoing, as they always were. Their hubris will be their downfall."

„I warn you, apprentice," the voice continues. „I don't want to see you fall along with them, with their sinking ship. You're too unique and too powerful to be laid to waste by incompetent fools. But wait and see. And tell me if I deceived you."

The bond finally snaps and Ben is left with a lingering uneasiness, deeper than any kind he felt before.

He scrambles to his feet and rushes back to his cabin, rubbing his pale face with cold water from the refresher, changing his sweat-drenched clothes.

He slacks off the whole day, forgetting the words of Jedi incantations, answering absent-mindedly, making ridiculous conclusions that send Irin, Dorn, and Rennek snickering behind his back; dragging his feet in the sparing, losing his saber mutliple times, letting Jessa (the small albino from Tatooine) to beat him time and time again. Perhaps it's the fatigue, and perhaps it's his anxiety he'll see exactly what the voice promised he would see in his Master's eyes – envy, fear and hatred.


	4. Napkin

"Your mother is in danger", Luke tells him one day with an expression of deep concern on his face. Ben noticed the Master was distraught for quite some time now. Irin, Dorn and Rennek too, so they use the Master's absent-mindedness to pester Ben even more. He has a sort of seniority in the brethren, but his title is more a burden than a privilege. They all know just how powerful he is, but at the same time, relish at how many constraints he has on him, imposed by his uncle. It is just maddening. The delinquents are no more than 5 years his juniors and still they act like total brats.

"Why do you tell me this, Master?" Ben asks rather brazenly, frustrated by his artificially created helplessness and by Luke straightforward demand to do something with his hands tied. The politics… the politics will be anyone's undoing in this galaxy. He wished he could spare her the pain, but she is way too stubborn and way too committed to the cause to back down.

"Stop the foolishness, Ben", Luke says, sternly. "It doesn't become you. Her political enemies plot her demise. I need you to take over the academy for awhile, while I'm gone".

Ben's jaw drops.

"Me?" Ben swallows hard, but is quick to re-compose himself. "No. Leave me to those half-lifes and I'll end breaking someone's throat".

His dark sincerity seems to be amusing to Luke, and it's a first.

"You're probably right", the man almost snorts through his nose. "They're a handful".

"That is an understatement", Ben exclaims, wryly. But a warmth waxes in his heart and the anxiety over his Master's true intentions wanes to non-existence. He trusts him so much that he'd leave his beloved school under his watch. But as he inspects the man's features, wrinkles of worry and sun damage on his face, he realizes. _The crisis must be overwhelming for him to interfere_ , his inner criticism rattles him again. Apart from few trips to Hosnian system and Coruscant, Luke was careful not to interfere with the New Republic, knowing the last time Jedi Council meddled with the politics it ended in the rise of the Sith _._ Besides, the Centralists were very skeptical of the Jedi order and their appearance with their quaint tabards and peculiar weapons and that ridiculous hair-styles Ben has shaken off only 2 years prior would cause his mother more harm than good. _It is not a Jedi way to wield that sort of influence over people, Ben,_ Luke told him and Ben complied. He understood perfectly. Jedi had enough power to mentally subdue whole planetary systems – even this sorry bunch of miscreants could do the same, provided they didn't kill one other in endless bickering first – but just because they had that potential, didn't mean they were meant to exploit it.

He ponders for a moment. _Was this the same crisis that Dark Side creature talked about?_ Ben both shudders at the prospect of his mother coming to harm's way and of Luke realizing he was talking to the Dark Side so openly. But the Jedi seems unaware for now.

"Take me with you… Master", Ben says abruptly. "She is my mother".

The look on Skywalker's face tells him he purposefully led this conversation to this point. He was loyal to his mother to his death, and even his death probably won't change that. Ben's pale cheeks turn to shade of a rose as he realizes he uncovered just how much of his mom's boy he is still.

 _Damn it_ , Luke, he grunts mentally.

But old man's face is one of contentment.

"Good", he says. "And to whom do we leave the academy, then?"

 _We_ , Ben blinks in amazement. _Gods, this is really a big sort of crisis._

But he has no doubt in his mind.

"Ask Kora, Schimbie and Ceth", Ben says. Kora is Twi'lek, a tough girl brought up in poverty of Lothal, and completely immune to the usual _padawan_ bullshit; despite all her timidity, Schimbie is smart, level-headed and a great swordswoman; and Ceth is a modest farmer's son, big-boned lad whose imposing height and weight are enough to keep Irin and other troublemakers at bay, without him even having to use the Force. Together, they wield enough power not to let everything fall to pieces.

"Good", Luke says. "That's settled then. We'll leave at dawn. Pack only the most necessary things".

"And my weapon?" Ben asks, at the same time dreading he will say no and that he'll say yes.

"Take it with you", the Master replies. "And hope we won't need those any time soon, except in training".

Ben's disproportionately infantile fantasy can't help but wander into the images of plasma beams clashing against the enemies of the New Republic, but he snaps out of it fast.

Leia. His heart sinks. _Politics be damned. She should've insisted on becoming a Jedi herself, not relinquishing it all just because she was so damn stubborn and skeptical._ Luke offered her more than once to train her in the ways of the Force, at least to the extent that she could defend herself better, but she'd refuse every time with some snarky remark.

"I don't want to change my hair", was one of her most common tongue-in-cheek responses.

That's one of the things he never understood about his mother. That, and the fact that she fell in love with his father.

* * *

There is a knock on his door, and he already knows who it isn't. It's Dorn this time: a gilded youth of 20 and a middle-class Hosnian, but with high aspirations – tall, lean, soft spoken, elegant, and pretty vacuous by Ben's standards. However, the bland beautiful face now has a secret, something almost resembling identity.

"What do you want?" Ben says impolitely. He is not particularly fond of him, or anyone else save for those three he appointed as temporary guardians of the Temple.

"Is it true?" Dorn mutters visibly enchanted with… something.

So, the word of their mission spread so quickly?

"Yes", Ben grunts, turning his back to the young man so he might wrap his saber into scabbard, then into linen. He tucks it neatly in his rucksack, right alongside his pen set. No need to carry that ancient thing around, but it is a sort of good luck charm for him, or at least he likes to pretend it is.

Dorn appears right by his side. His green eyes wide with awe and terror. No, he meant something altogether different.

"So, it _is_ true", he says, finding some sort of faint recognition in Ben. "The Dark Side spoke to you as well".

 _As well_ , Ben winces at the thought of his lost exclusivity and the fact he was exposed in his forbidden musings.

He grabs the young man by the throat and picks him up from the ground.

"You will say nothing of this to anyone", he growls in authoritative low tone, using all his strength to Force manipulate Dorn into oblivion. "You spoke to no one, and no one spoke to you. Let alone Dark Side. It is preposterous".

Dorn falls back, fighting for air.

"Get out", Ben growls at him. He has to restrain himself not to punch the fool right through the stone wall of his cabin. The boy staggers to exit, dazed and disoriented. The aftertaste of this manipulation will not draw Luke's attention, given he is already preparing his old X-wing to take them to Hosnian Prime.

Ben tenses. No one can know of this. That creature will pay for its insolence. The moment they finish their mission with the Senate, he'll tell Luke everything about it. Nothing will be left unsaid. He was a fool for keeping this to himself for so long.

But then again, his parents both wanted a normal child, not some kind of a freak with at least two conflicting voices in his head. He hoped he could wish the influence away, but it became like a second skin to him over the years.

No, he will end this immediately.

As soon as they come back.


	5. The Bombing thwarted

**The Bombing Thwarted**

(Synopsis: Ben warns Leia of impending danger. Leia manages to escape in the eleventh hour. Luke faces Snoke.)

They leave Luke's X-wing in a secluded place outside the Hosnian Prime and proceed to the nearest communal shuttle station. Wearing plain gray and olive-green hooded coats, they draw as little attention as possible and Luke sends a low energy of the Force to make their appearance even less conspicuous – the school teacher and his young colleague, or a senior clerk and his apprentice: that's how they appear to the public.

Long time has passed since Ben was out in the open and in the public. His natural timidity always kept him away from the crowd, but nevertheless he feels nervousness and simple delight at being so close to this rustling, unaware life on the streets of Hosnian Prime.

The whole city was a great construction site and a city of great promise – buzzing and bustling with life and with commerce. A lot of chaos and of criminal, too, as in any city that exploded economically and demographically after any war. The New Republic did its best (and Ben wrinkled his nose at this sort of relativity) to uproot corruption, poverty and disease, but still they permeated here and there: beggars on the streets, orphans like Irin too numerous for their democratic comfort.

And her. Probably born into the life of slavery to begin with.

The early morning holds the promise of a day bright and fresh – markets are just being opened, and the city wakes up. Still, as they progress to the center where the Senate resides, Ben feels a sort of disturbance in the Force. A signature eerily and uncomfortably similar to the creature's – he knows it well, that hum. It followed him for as long as he can remember. He tenses, knowing that if he feels it, Luke probably picked on it as soon they entered the orbit.

Luke even names the source of the disturbance.

„The Amaxine warriors", he utters the name of the illegal faction associated with smugglers and black market. „They're already here. I thought we had more time, but of course they would be here as soon as Senat opens".

Luke whips his head in the direction of the Senate, worries mounting on his face. Another's energy, but now that of the light, permeates the air like a sunbeam – it's Leia. Ben's heart trembles – the child in him would run to his mother and take her away from here, back to Hanah City and to that time when none of this has happened. But he knows he can't – he's practically a Jedi now, and on a mission. Emotionally unattached, at peace with himself... oh, the burden they demand from padawans: no surprise half of them fails short like Rennek, Dorn and Irin. Their advantage is that they don't even care. Ben, however, does.

„What do they plan to do?" Ben asks, trying to sound and appear cool.

Luke frowns. „They have their orders", Luke utters. „But they will go against them – whoever finances them is in Senate and doesn't even begin to fathom to sort of men he has business with... or she".

One can't play with fire and expect he won't get burned: or play with the Dark Side and expect to remain untainted.

Panic grows at the back of Ben's head and he's again at the verge of telling Luke everything when the Master interrupts him.

„Come, Ben", he says. „We must hurry".

* * *

Luke has an unsavory habit of disappearing when he's most needed and re-appearing when he's wanted the least.

He left Ben alone 2 hours ago. The Senate prepares to resume its presiding. And the Dark Side hums against Ben's ears like a drum.

Luke has strictly forbidden Ben from interfering and from using the saber that shivers in his rucksack at this point – it is maddening.

"Just wait for me here, Ben", he said, visibly agitated and then disappeared with swiftness that far surpassed his years.

" _I'll be slouching here while she is being hurt or even worse",_ Ben has barely enough focus to think with the Dark Side murmuring around him in its dead language, its intonation betraying mockery and disdain. _"Gods damn you, Luke"._

Ben glances over the hedge behind which he's hiding – senators and senatorial candidates streaming to the conference building situated in the extension of the Senate. He's been obedient for so long – and even Luke isn't infallible. He can't just stand here while…

He focuses in the Force and against the orgiastic noise of the Dark Side – he feels drops of sweat forming and dripping from the sides of his face, down his neck and back.

It's a bomb. The Amaxines are planting a bomb in the Senate.

 _Gods damn you, Luke, where are you?!_

He hates this – this helplessness shoveled down his throat. He has all this knowledge and powers and he is prohibited from using them. And the innocents will pay for it – it's just insanity. He will tolerate this no more.

Ben springs from behind the hedge and mingles with the catering staff. Probably his Force cloak wasn't strong enough (the strain of focusing in the Force was perhaps too much), because a senior manager yells at his face:

"Where have you been for so long?! The napkins are still missing at tables 50 through 60! Go there in an instant and see they're settled, or I'll make sure you lose your job!"

Ben frowns for a second, irritated to his last nerve by the fact everyone in this galaxy finds him an easy target to yell at.

But then he sees an opportunity opening and quickly mumbles a sheepish response: "Of course, I'll see to it".

He disappears into the dining hall with a bundle of paper napkins in his hands. His eyes lock on the table his mother will soon occupy.

He has to make haste.

Using the fact that the rest of the staff is preoccupied with final preparations, he takes his pen set from his rucksack and writes as clearly and as visibly as he can (he hates large letters, but now he has to go against his high standards) a word of warning on a paper streamer:

"RUN".

Ben tucks the paper streamer within the folds of a napkin and leaves it at his mother's place. He lays his hand on the napkin to straighten it up – or to leave an energy signature strong enough for his mother to detect. He shivers. Gods, how helpless he is.

 _Force, help her_ , he thinks as he rushes out of the building, with first senatorial candidates coming into the room.

* * *

"Why do you hide in the shadows?" He exclaimed, his own voice coming back at him like a growl. "Show yourself".

The darkness before him, the same deafening darkness that protects its Amaxine agents, tenses and thickens. That darkness regurgitates a voice, full of scorn and of hatred.

"Master Luke Skywalker", the voice hisses. "Finally, we meet. I knew you would come to your precious Princess's aid".

Luke reaches out with his hand to the shadows. He absorbs something of that energy and reads it like he would a Jedi text.

The creature is ancient, and its age is vertigo-inducing – it had a myriad of different names in the past, but the dead nations called him: Snoke.

"We both know", Luke says, his voice lowered to a growling whisper. "It's Ben you're really after. You won't have him, Snoke".

The voice of the darkness comes back, snickering.

"Oh, won't I?" He mocks him openly. "Oh, yes – that's that old Jedi arrogance and blindness. You fool, you think you can affect his decisions? You think I made him do something, see something?"

Snoke chuckles ominously, genuinely amused.

"The boy is already half-way to the Dark Side. Even you are not foolish enough to believe that the darkness that is embedded in his bones can be so easily subdued. No, Luke Skywalker – the Darkness remembers everything. It remembers your rage, your fear and your hatred. They were enough to replenish us for decades, and now… we're back".

Luke shudders. Dagobah, the Cave of Evil; him, facing Vader for the first time; him, almost succumbing completely to his own rage before the Emperor, almost slaughtering his own father even though he felt, acutely, the last remaining glimpses of Light in him. He thought destroying the Sith was enough, but it wasn't.

"Who are you?" Luke utters, breathless.

"I am the power, Skywalker", Snoke exclaims, triumphantly. "I am the sort of power you have never encountered before. I am as old as the galaxy itself and have seen many Sith rising and falling, as I have many Jedi. All of you are nothing compared to me – every single thought you have, every single weakness, every single grief – I know it even before you do. Empire was nothing compared to the new order I will establish. And your precious nephew will help me build it. But first – we will destroy everything you strove to build and everything you hold dear, Skywalker".

"No!" Luke shrieks and a lightning, materializing out of nowhere, strikes the darkness in front of him.

"You cannot harm him", he says to the seemingly silenced darkness. "You don't have the strength".

"Perhaps", the shadow replies with a low roar. "And perhaps I really don't need to do anything, for now - it is the hubris of the Jedi that will be your downfall, like it was already under your father. Your human weaknesses work against you and to my benefit – imagine what will happen the moment boy finds out about his true heritage. If I was foolish, like you, I would've told the boy the truth already – but I didn't. Want to know why? Because when he sees all of your weakness, arrogance and cowardice right in front of his face, he will come running to the Dark Side. You prohibit power and rage – I will encourage him to dive into it like into an ocean. You prohibit passion and bloodthirst – I will feed him until he's full. He knows it already. It's only the matter of time now, Skywalker".

"Enough", Luke exclaims and with the blast of Force, the darkness is quick to disappear.

Muffled explosions draw his attention and almost immediately, roaring alarms set off. Distant yells and panic flush over Luke like a tide. Master Jedi tenses. He won't leave Ben alone, ever again. That thing found him everywhere – in the temple, in Hanah City, even in his mother's womb; and Force knows, he tried to approach him here, as well.

For the first time in his existence, Luke feels mortal dread.

* * *

"Where have you been?" Ben exclaims, panting. "The Senate has been bombed! The senators escaped only narrowly!"

Luke is weary. Suddenly, his sister's life falls to the second place and for a fleeting moment, he's glad Jedi religion prohibited marriage and family.

Part of him expected to see Ben already turned – and meeting with the boy as he left him lifts his spirits a bit. He may be young and impetuous and over-sensitive and even foolish, but he's no servant of the Dark Side with his doe eyes, cheeks blushing in agitation and his plain Jedi clothes.

Something akin to a smile forms on Luke's face.

"What?" Ben almost barks and his face becomes red up until the tips of his ears (of which he was so overly self-conscious, Luke knew).

"We'll stay in Hosnian Prime for awhile", Luke tells him. "Just until we're sure Leia is safe and out of the planet".

The prospect of not coming back immediately to the grueling routine of the temple apparently delights Ben, to the point that he can't even hide his joy. But he is soon to recompose himself and frown.

"I went there and left a warning note", he grunts, pointing in the direction of the damaged building.

"I know", Luke replies. "You did well. You did exactly like a Jedi should do".

He pats the young man on his back – he held him too harshly and too cautiously, he admits to himself, to the point where he failed to see the true danger as it towered over Ben in all its monstrous size and form. They actually share so much in common – the quick-temper and the rage, timidity and lust for knowledge, but sense of humor and empathy too.

And Vader – but he won't tell Ben of the man, not yet. He sees Ben is visibly startled and delighted because he received so many commends on his master's part. He can't crush boy's spirits, not while that menace is still around.

He fought off Snoke's attack, but the creature didn't vanish altogether – for some reason, Luke's intuition tells him the monster is looming over Jakku now. Luke knows the lightning hurt him, but not enough to destroy him. _Why the junkyard planet? It's abandoned by the Empire years ago._ Luke is somewhat puzzled. But still, the energy is indestructible and imperial influence is probably still alive there, at least spiritually: there can be no other reason for the creature to scurry off there. He won't go after him in a goose-chase: _you can't destroy evil. But you can protect what you love and hold dear._ He'll protect his nephew. _It still isn't too late._


	6. Revelation

**Revelation**

(Synopsis: Ben finds out the truth of his origin.)

They sit in a small tea room in Hosnian Prime suburbs. Ben sips his Tarine tea absent-mindedly, welcoming the bitterness that keeps him focused and that prevents his tears from falling.

This little trip with his uncle is anything but leisure time - they're witnessing the death of the New Republic. He feels for his mother. It is the end of all her hopes and dreams for the future. He mourns his own childhood lost to a failed project, but although he feels the forked tongue of resentment, he cannot loathe his parents. They are as lost in this world as he is. There was a time he would resent that position intensely, but now there's only sorrow.

Soft rain drips on the windows of the establishment, strangely mirroring his own state of mind.

And as he dwells in his personal grief, a distant sound of a republican broadcast draws his attention.

Days after the incident, the whole galaxy is still in the state of uproar over the demolition of Senate. The bitchy in-fighting starts. Accusations flying left and right - whose fault was it? Centrists? Populists? Ben wrinkles his nose. He doesn't resent her idealism, but he surely despises the pettiness and the foolishness of senators and their parties. They traded the fragile peace and fleeting prosperity for mere satisfaction of their egos, instead of working together to reinforce the Republic. He tries to decipher his master's face, but it's covered in the deep shade of his hood. _Overly cautious_ , Ben thinks.

Feeling acute disappointment with everyone surrounding him, in his mind he goes back to the girl. Not her in reality, but the memory of her, blending both his dreams and the moment Force allowed him to see her. In a way, her miserable position shields her from all of this - the Jedi, the Senate. She can live peacefully and idealize her heroes as she wills - he, however, cannot. He saw the Republic inside and out, and also his mother's surrogate child, the Resistance. There is nothing remotely remarkable about either of those. In fact, there is a lingering disdain for both in his mind.

And as for the Jedi… his wandering mind returns to Luke, who is sipping a cup of blue milk. Simple as can be. Sheltered in that temple like relic of the past, expecting that mutinous bunch of semi-criminals to make something of themselves. Ben feels the destruction of the Sith rendered the Jedi order redundant. As if in a case of a bad romance, the darkness cannot exist without the light and vice versa.

Or so they say. Not that he would know.

They turned the light saber at the temple once and the saber pointed to him and Schimbie who rushed through the door faster than he could pronounce her name. Kora rolled her eyes and jumped in her place. Why, it goes way above his head. Perhaps she felt lonely, too. Perhaps he has some sort of feminine energy surrounding him, damn it. The contact isn't unpleasant, and her race is uniformly beautiful and sensual, but their encounter is pretty much asexual and more of statement on Kora's part - how she regards them all as nothing more than sorry bunch of horny losers. He shrugs the embarrassment off, feeling uneasy around Luke (who really doesn't need to know what happens in training after-hours).

His mind goes back to her again.

It is an odd place, that brain of his - the residence of such polar opposites. Her, bathing in the light, and that voice coming from the other side of the Force. One presence exudes hope and compassion; the other offers power and all things dark. And although he yearns for the control so much, his yearning for her is stronger. He was alone most of his life. No one qualifies as his friend. He is an only child, but he wouldn't object to a younger sister and he knows Leia wouldn't as well, had her urge to wreak havoc on Solo's head not prevailed. Can he find her? Would the Force allow it? He tries to remember anything about her that would point him in the right direction. The girl from the desert collects plants and that is the only thing that isn't amorphous in her surroundings. He might be able to trace the planet through its flora. That's an idea that appeals to him. She is so intensely lonely, probably one of the crisis orphans all democracies failed to protect. He frowns again. And as his eyes inspect the patrons present, the broadcast changes. It is emergency news from Lady Carise herself. He never appreciated the woman, finding her disingenuous and sick with ambition.

" _You cannot choose your allies, Ben"_ , his mother's husky voice activates in his memory. _"You cannot make everything black or white. Life doesn't work that way"._

He begs to differ, especially now. Woman's overly concerned voice feels like a mockery. He smirks and listens, but it's like nails against a blackboard. He is almost at the verge of pleading with Luke to pay and leave when the new turn of events draws attention of both of them to the screen. A music box appears on the screen - something Alderaanian. He recognizes it immediately, and so does Luke. Jedi's expression swiftly turns from absent-mindedness into open panic and concern.

"Ben", he utters, but it's too late.

The text starts crawling on the side of the screen and the boy sees everything.

Boy - why does he still treat him as one? Why didn't he see this would come sooner than later? Luke's eyes go back from the screen to Ben.

His eyes are fixed on the screen as he slowly rises to his feet and tenses. His expression twists up in the most impossible mixture of feelings - betrayal, loss, confusion, rage, anguish, terror.

He now knows who he is and what his bloodline truly is.

"Ben", the master Jedi raises his hand in fear the _padawan_ might do something in a fit of rage.

But he doesn't. And his dead calm is even more unsettling to his master than his quick temper.

Ben has never felt so lost or so exposed in his entire existence.

His adulthood, long overdue, finally sets in and smashes everything he ever thought he knew and believed in like a hammer.


	7. Luke and Ben

**Luke and Ben**

 _(Synopsis: from now on, it only goes downhill. And fast.)_

Luke finds him through the Force some 3 miles away from the place. Ben was running like possessed and Luke feels, for the first time, the burdening weight of his biological age. Ben's presence in the Force, that strong lighthouse lost in tempestuous sea, is now darkened.

He always felt that by destruction of the Emperor and by the turning to the Light of the last remaining Sith, Lord Vader, he bought this galaxy more time.

Obviously, he was so gravely mistaken.

The Jedi master sighs.

He tried, frantically, to find out more about this mysterious Dark Side user, but his own meticulousness in exterminating every single remnant of the Sith now stood in the way – the resources were scarce, even in the vast libraries of the long abandoned Sith academy on Korriban. His father's castle on Mustafar was turned to rubbles and barricaded under his own instructions. The dead Sith were mockingly and defiantly silent to him, of course.

So here he is, little more than 20 years later, chasing the same shadow all over again.

And now it is even more painful than the first time - even though he trembled over Han and Leia, he was so young and so reckless then. He wonders if the majority of his legendary bravery was nothing more than youthful unawareness. His bones ache. His knees crackle in the morning. His bionic hand hurts at the junction with his flesh and bones, and that's not the only joint that suffers early rheumatism.

In those days, he was responsible only for himself, more or less. But now, he has this child - his sister's child - under his care. He practically had to convince the ever skeptical Leia the boy will do good if he gets trained in the ways of the Force, if he learns how to control that power he was born with.

Reluctantly, she accepted his ardent arguments.

But was he speaking out of good intentions alone? Or was there a pang of vanity as well? They feared Ben had too much of Vader's heart in him, but what if he, the mighty Luke Skywalker, was every bit as guilty of this like Ben was? _What a terrible expression_ , Luke thinks. Guilt. The boy was not guilty of anything. He didn't choose this. Sometimes, during his schooling, he'd sense Ben's weariness and loneliness, too. His burning sense of unworthiness. He'd try to spare him on those days, but as soon as he'd been relieved of his duties, the old shadow would creep in. Ben thought Luke was unaware - reckless, vain, impulsive youth - but he was aware. Oh, how aware he was of his exchanges with the Dark Side.

He could've let Tekka teach the boy to become a Force soother. That way, Ben would not become a Jedi, but he'd learn to subdue and control his powers. He thought Ben was too hot-headed and impetuous for that sort of a quiet, simple life, and Tekka too lenient. But was he deceiving himself only so he could continue that powerful Skywalker bloodline?

All these thoughts come rushing in as he chases after Ben.

When he found him, Ben is standing at the edge of a channel filled with murky waters under a low bridge, his face expressionless. Empty. His feet, parted shoulder wide, anticipate a combat stance. But he doesn't move and doesn't acknowledge Luke's presence.

"Ben", Luke says.

The young man turns, albeit slowly, his mind distant.

"It doesn't matter, Master," Ben utters.

It all makes perfect sense now. His mother's objection to the Jedi ways. His father's open irony. His own ill-temper and the powerful allure the Dark Side has on him ever since he can remember. The fact that he felt so out of place all of his life, an over-privileged outcast.

It was prohibited to the younglings to use Force manipulation to read other people's minds and he never dared do it to Leia, but now he bitterly regrets his sheepish obedience.

How could they? Why couldn't they trust him? Why have they procreated if the burden of the past felt so heavy and so shameful? How didn't they realize it was he who paid the ultimate price, an innocent child unaware of his heritage, both over-protected and bitterly thrust into the world without warning?

His thoughts are tumultuous and Luke doesn't need telepathy to see it.

He always knew his nephew was very sensitive and very emotional. After all, although he'd never admit it to the boy, it was also Leia's and his own state of mind. But they managed to channel this intense sensitivity into something good and constructive while Ben remained… unbalanced.

"Ben," he tries to resume the conversation in the X-wing, on their way back to the temple, but Ben shrugs off his attempt.

"It is unimportant," he squeezes through his clenched teeth.

Stubborn - another family trait.

But he has to be not only wiser, but truly wise - he'll not press the matter any further until the boy cools down a bit and starts hearing their side of the story.

 _Boy_ \- he should really stop calling him that, because one he certainly isn't. Luke feels a tone of regret setting on his heart, and makes every effort to discard it as a useless emotion. They did nothing wrong. They acted in boy's best interest. They tried to protect him from dangerous knowledge until the time was right for him to accept.

But even as they reach the temple he cannot exorcise the overwhelming feeling they - him, Leia and Han - have failed Ben miserably.

Schimbie waits especially for him, with Ceth and Kora approaching Luke first. Their reports are good. They worked as a team and no excess happened. They're proud at their accomplishments and Luke commends them on their team effort.

They do not know of the truth that is his identity - yet. The whole planet is shielded with ancient sources of the Force as it helps the _padawans_ to concentrate.

Ben feels a sort of weak gratitude for the obliviousness of this place he considered cumbersome only yesterday. This is the closest thing to home he'll ever experience.

And even that will soon come to its end.

Schimbie's warm short-sighted eyes blink at him. He'd sneer at her foolish infatuation - he envies her for her unpolluted mind - but can't bring himself to do it.

He makes a weak attempt to smile at her and she is over the moon with joy.

 _Poor kid_ , he thinks. _She doesn't know whom she is in love with._

He glances at his master and uncle. His face is shaded with concern that he's not even trying to conceal.

 _He calculates_ , Ben thinks. After what has happened in Hosnian Prime, after that revelation, the voice of the Dark Side echoes in his mind: _He doesn't trust you. He's afraid of you. Every time you grow beyond his expectations, he fears you even more._

"Ben," Luke interrupts on his troubled thoughts. His voice is gentler than ever before. He looks at him with that same gaze he had the first time he brought the boy into the temple.

"We'll tell them when you're ready," he says, and tries to put his hand on Ben's shoulder in reassurance.

But Ben steps back, almost instinctively.

"It is all the same to me, Master," he replies in a flat tone.

 _I am who I am. Before, now and forever more._

His silent hut made of wood and of stone, once a sort of welcoming shelter, now feels like a grave. The whole island feels like a tomb, its stone walls threatening to crash around him.

Exhausted, he falls asleep fully clothed, and dreams of nothing. It is profound sleep of a man slain.

* * *

In the months that ensue, that voice doesn't come back but in a way, Ben doesn't care. The galaxy around him is a deafening silence. Some weeks after the Hosnian incident, Luke gathers his pupils in the Temple to tell them news of Ben's and his heritage.

"Nothing changes," he speaks to them all. "There is light and there is darkness in each and every one of us, and I, your master, am no exception."

He glances at Ben with understanding and compassion, but the young man stays frozen like a statue, looking in some undefined point before him, eyes lowered.

Luke has his reputation to hide behind – no one dares to look at the old, simple, quaint Jedi as some sort of phantasm of the past. But it's different for Ben – it always was. His hopes that at last he would find a kindred spirit, a friend and a companion at the Academy quickly dissipated at the very beginning. One half of them are practically delinquents, the other half comes with another sort of burden of life behind them – everyone trapped within their own selfish needs, pain, troubles and agendas. Perhaps it's his natural timidity, often mistaken for arrogance; perhaps it's his awkward silence, mistaken for disdain; perhaps it's his powers, the ones he never asked for in the first place, that instigate fear and envy; or perhaps it's just the simple human need to vilify someone – a proclivity even these Jedi students aren't resistant to.

After the truth is revealed, there is a definite segregation within the small school community – those who shun him, and those who inspect him with inquisitiveness. And in between them all is Schimbie; the only one so infatuated that she doesn't even care and tells him explicitly so. But he doesn't care, either. Not enough to pack up and leave the island, disappearing somewhere in the Unknown Regions; not enough to kill himself, remnants of the Jedi religion prohibiting any sort of violence, especially that over oneself; not enough to raise an army against the Jedi. Why should he? It is all so meaningless and banal.

His mother tries to contact him through Luke: through Force, and then via a hologram projector, the only one active on the entire island – but he rejects all contact. It pains and frustrates Luke, but what can he do? What sort of punishment can he reinforce to break his resolve?

 _It is too late, mother._

His days become even more mundane than before – not so long ago, he ached for the excitement, for the mystery of the unexplored planets, for the joy of the battle, for the old glory of the Jedi to return. Now, he has all of this and so much more than he ever bargained for and his own stupidity that laughs right at his face. _Stupid, weak boy._ He just goes through the motions in his training, neglects his books and his manuscripts that now lie about, scattered, dust forming layer upon layer over his most cherished possessions; even Anakin's saber becomes languid and distant like a stranger. It once chose him – now they are as alien to each other as any other dead object without personal value and its unwilling owner.

Until, one day, the old voice is back again. Only, this time it's strengthened – it is clearer.

It comes with a plan and a proposition – with purpose, promise and an agenda – something his parents and the Jedi never had.

The matrix within the saber makes a low, nervous buzz to the point Ben has to press it with his hand to stop it from moving spastically on his low wooden table.

And then, he stops and listens: to the voice, and to the new language of his saber.


	8. Leia's letter

I shed a tear or two by the end of this chapter.

 **Leia's Letter**

The old man certainly felt the disturbance – the Dark and the Light Side are so inexplicably intertwined – because the next morning, Luke comes to his hut. Ben expects a long proselytism concerning Jedi virtues and personal freedom and his choices and the Dark Side influence, but it's nothing of the sort.

The Jedi just handles him a small piece of folded paper, with a wax seal bearing the crest of the House Organa. She rarely used that seal – finding it too emotional and too painful and too quaint for her to use. She let Ben play with it as a child, knowing how fond he was of their family history and of history of the Old Republic in general.

If she could strike him down with a blaster-shot to the chest from across the galaxy, that death would feel less painful than that blood red wax seal, piercing right through his heart.

"It is your mother, Ben," Luke says, his voice broken. "She is desperate. She is heart-broken. Please, just…"

He lowers the paper on Ben's bed, as he remains in the corner, motionless.

"…just try, Ben."

Luke sighs and leaves.

Left alone, Ben stared at the _thing_ as if it was white-hot and threatened to burn his whole hut down, himself included. Regardless, he made one feeble step toward it – no matter how much pain they both caused him, he was still like a moth to the flame – his arm outstretched, he let his hand hover over the paper for a moment. The burning letters started forming in his mind: his mother's handwriting, exactly like he remembers it, although now it reflected her haste, her confusion and her despair – the pressure of the pen uneven: somewhere threatening to break the resilient structure of the paper, on other places so faint, like a voice lost in the wind. Her unfaltering love and compassion and pain flooded him, without so much as an ounce of reprimand tainting them – it was agonizing. But with her letter, along came the old memories, too.

They were frightened of him. The way they talked of him that night, thinking he was asleep and couldn't hear him – their conspiratorial whispers making their betrayal even more painful, if that was even possible.

They spoke of him, of their own son, like he was nothing more than a monster that should be put down or locked away for good and dispatched to the most remote corner of the galaxy, where other monsters dwell.

And so they got rid of him, sending him away to Luke – a liar, a hypocrite, a conniving Jedi full of disdain and fear and folly.

Feeling the fit of blind rage and pain coming in, he burnt the letter down in one single stroke of his lightsaber, his grandfather's damn lightsaber.

 _It is too late, mother._

And then he fell back, his face in his hands, and wept like he has never wept before in his entire life – knowing he'll probably never weep like this ever again.

* * *

 _„My son,_

 _By know, you know the secret of my origin. That secret has plagued my years and haunted my dreams like a nightmare. I thought myself to be stronger. I thought I overcame the shadow that loomed over my adult years. I thought I have forgiven the man behind the mask – and in a way, I did. Obi Van told me my mother, and your grandmother, Padme Amidala Naberrie, died with forgiveness on her lips and in her heart. She thought there was still good in him. Remembering this, I beg you, Ben, to find something redeeming about your own mother now. I admit – I was weak. I am weak still. I failed to protect you. I failed to be the mother you deserve. Luke praises you for your intelligence, knowledge, strength and talents and I hate so much that all of this has happened right now, when you seem to finally find some sort of peace with yourself. I know growing up is hard business. You might not believe it, but I probably know all about it better than you think. My own father, at that point reduced to a bionic monster covered with a mask, tortured me. Destroyed the only planet I knew as home. Destroyed only people I ever knew as my parents. Destroyed my own mother's life, sending me and my brother into life of hiding and cover-up. I cannot begin to express how sorry I am that this past came back to haunt us and to haunt you, Ben. Anakin Skywalker is now at peace. Luke claims to have seen his ghost, but ghosts are privileged, Ben. I know it. It is the living who must live though they are haunted by the phantasms of the past._

 _I remember it now and I will remember it until my dying day, how you appeared as brilliant light that no darkness could extinguish even while you were in my belly. You are that light still, the sort of light no threat can ever darken, no matter how terrible it appears to be. I know that there is a light shining so bright somewhere, no matter how distant or far away in this tormented galaxy, and that is the only truth I know. Everything else, even the Republic – believe it or not – don't matter to me. You are the only thing that ever mattered. Everything I ever did was to make sure you inherit a better world, far better than the one I stepped in. And now, knowing that I have failed miserably on all accounts, I can only hope and pray that one day you'll be able to forgive me. That this anguish will ultimately be our shared sorrow, one we'll overcome together one day. Hope is never lost – we defeated the Empire and the Sith once, we can do it again. And with you by my side, I know I can face every evil this galaxy could ever give birth to – the Amaxine warriors, the surviving Imperialists and all the dark forces that support them from the shadows._

 _Never forget that, no matter how imperfect and foolish your father and mother are, we love you to our deaths and beyond._

 _Also, never, ever forget you're the Light, Ben. You're my Light. You made and still make this life worthwhile. When everything crumbles, as it does now, it is not the Resistance or the politics I look up to in hope: it's you and it will always be you._

 _May the Force Be with you always, my most beloved son._

 _Please, forgive me._

 _Your ever loving mother,_

 _Leia."_


	9. He's changed

**He's changed**

 _(Synopsis: the destruction of the temple and the carnage start.)_

Luke shows leniency to him – but oh, how this gentleness now stings! It's insulting. It's long overdue and too late.

He is cold. He is forgetting her features like he forgot his old nanny's face once she died – one of the few persons that simply loved him, and looked beyond his powers and his position of privilege.

Accursed privilege.

He is so cold now.

And during the training, he can feel he is becoming remorseful. He realizes just how much he actually spared every single one of his sparring partners up until now – he strikes them mercilessly, and they soon lose their weapon or sustain mock-injuries that would otherwise, haven't they used training swords, lead to death.

They're afraid – he can sense their fear. But he doesn't care. Only with Schimbie he's somewhat stunned by what he has done and what he is becoming. She is fast and nimble, and deflects his every blow with amazing precision and versatility. But soon their school-level training becomes something bitter, something sinister and desperate. Her movements became panicky and before long he hears her voice inside his head: _Ben, no!_

He stops and shudders – his saber is at her throat, and she's trapped between him and the stone wall of the temple behind her, her sword-hand blocked with his own hand, his knee wedged between her legs.

He recoils and jumps backward. The red haze lifts. The terror in her eyes, the same eyes that were once so loving, is now so great even he has to shiver.

He throws his training saber as far as he can, disgusted by the pain he caused her.

„Gods, Schimbie," he practically yelps. „I'm so sorry! Are you alright? Are you hurt? Let me help you! I don't know what possessed me!"

But nothing possessed him. Snoke warned him, then dissappeared.

This is him, his true self. The Vader in him. The realization freezes him, but then it settles in his soul – _yes, it all makes so much sense now._

The girl dashes off without a word, too scared and too dazed to speak even if she knew how.

 _To Luke_ , he thinks and frowns. _Good – let her tell him everything. The old fool needs to know._ The old man needs to face him and end all of this.

* * *

His little Tatooine student rushes into his hut without knocking. The girl is smart and respectful – for her to come rushing in like that means something really out of the ordinary had to happen.

She's been weeping – she cries still.

Using her hands, she communicates her distress to Luke.

"There's something wrong with Ben," she says, and sobs again, making guttural, unarticulated sounds as she does.

"What?" He asks her, but if he was to be completely honest to both of them, he already knows the answer.

"He's cold… so cold…" She tries to articulate it with hands, but soon her voice breaks and she covers her face with those same hands that denied obedience.

The poor kid – he liked the girl so much and saw so many Jedi virtues, excellent Jedi qualities in her. She wields one of Ahsoka's sabers, and it fits her perfectly. The saber picked her, murmuring contentedly as the fearful girl approached and touched the hilt for the first time.

"I'll talk to him," Luke pats her on the shoulder and tries to sound as comforting as he can.

Knot in his stomach, a dense sense of mortal dread and panic – a long time has passed since those emotions found way to his heart.

Ever since he faced Vader for the first time.

* * *

"Ben," he says. "You don't need to do this. You don't need to become a Jedi if you don't want to. You haven't pledged your allegiance to anyone. You don't answer to anyone but yourself. There are other possibilities with all your knowledge and your talents…"

"Stop with the flattery," the young man retorts in a cold voice. "It's so unbecoming of a Jedi."

"Ben," Luke tries again. He is not vain. These snarky retorts can't harm him. But they are not just snarky… they're freezing cold. "You can go and serve with Tekka. I can ask him and he'll be more than willing to have you as his pupil. I can ask Leia to have you with her, as one of her apprentices. And Han…"

The strange, guttural noise resembling laughter, and coming from Ben, startles the Jedi master.

"What about them?" Ben asks, his eyes flashing with resentment. "You really think they'd accept Vader's grandson in their midst? Can you imagine the faces of that pathetic Resistance the moment I, Vader junior, come through the door?"

Ben continues laughing savagely, and the whole Jedi village reverberates with his voice.

"Oh, Master," he says, finally changing his expression from wild delight to dark dissatisfaction. "You really amuse me."

Luke's heart sinks to the depth he never knew he possessed.

"Can't you see," Ben continues, his voice dropping low and changing into a painful growl. "There is no place for me in this galaxy, in this little legend of yours. I am damned. No matter what I do, what I try, how many apologies I issue, it all remains the same."

"It is not true," Luke exclaims and grabs the young man by his shoulders. "I am Vader's son! I stepped into rage, and darkness and fear far more often they I'd like to remember! I know the power that corrupts you, Ben! I can help you fight it, only if you let me!"

But Ben breaks his hold with disgust and jumps away so violently that even the Jedi master has to recoil back. Instinctively, he assumes a battle stance – a position that doesn't escape Ben's keen vision.

He grins viciously, like he saw something that he craved to see, something that gave him the last push and the final resolve.

Luke immediately flexes, but the damage is already done.

"What do you plan to do?" Luke whispers in the dimly lit hamlet, light rods flickering around them, hopelessness dripping from his voice like thick tincture.

"It is none of your business," Ben replies, coldly. "Like you already said, I need to answer to no one. Or perhaps, you lied when you said it? It wouldn't be the first. It became a sort of a commonplace with you… Jedi."

* * *

His mother can't see him in this state. It's better for her to remember him as that boy that rushed to her aid and saved her, than like this… abomination.

Luke's been sleepless over this for two weeks now. And although he pleaded with Jessa not to go there and expose herself to danger, she's been informing him regularly about the meetings Ben organizes during the night with his students. He offers them power – _oh, gods,_ Luke screams inside of his own mind – and all things that only one source can provide, and that is the Dark Side. And what's even more agonizing is that he is not even trying to conceal the true nature of their after-hours sessions – he's openly mocking his Jedi master and all that he represents.

Jessa leaves an impression of being "on the fence" with her decision – Ben is aware the girl has feelings for him, so she plays the role of an infatuated heart quite nicely, thus hiding her true intentions.

She is the only one who's trying to somehow subvert his actions and to save him, but even she falls into resignation soon.

"What I thought to be a lake", Luke said to her after listening carefully to her reports. "It is now an ocean."

Her short-sighted eyes blink at him. She'd cry, but she exhausted all her tears some time ago.

It's hopeless.

* * *

Luke is restless. All sleep is long gone – he walks back and forth in his hut, his thoughts feverish and in disarray, his heart broken. He is losing him, Leia's son – no, he already lost him. It doesn't matter whose fault it is now – he must act, he must make the bitter decisions no one else in the entire galaxy can. Han is out of reach, probably running again from Kanji Klub or some other smugglers' or mercenary group he owes money to – but even if he was within the reach, what would he do? He never understood Jedi ways, and never tried to. In fact, all that he'd be able to say would probably be something along the lines of: "I told you so, kid."

Yes, he was against Ben's training in the first place. It was he and Leia who ultimately had to convince him it's good, for all of them. Then that incident happened…

Jedi master stops and shudders.

Luke knew Ben was innocent – at that time, he could read the boy like an open book, and he felt genuinely sorry for how unfairly the world treated that frightened, precocious boy. But now… what happened in the past is almost like a foreshadowing.

He has to face him – again. The hope is a weak one, but he has to talk to that same boy he once knew and who is still somewhere… drowning in the ocean that once was a lake.

But his damn Jedi intuition didn't fail him once, and doesn't fail him again. The only reason he failed to detect the growing darkness is his own weakness for the boy – his own unreasonable compassion he has for a blood-relative.

Even as the young man sleeps, the darkness in him is roaring. He can hear the clash of the weapons, the wailing of the dying, the torment, chaos and war he'll bring – another Empire, only far more sinister than the one before, brutality and unprecedented fanatism shaping the ranks of the new enemy… unless someone stops him.

In a fleeting moment of a pure instinct, he raises his green lightsaber. The plasma beam crackles and buzzes, casting diffuse green light on the sleeping body and Ben's modest possessions around him.

 _It will end now. One life for the salvation of the many._

But in that exact moment, Ben wakes up to the turbulence in the Force.

Luke stops and gasps, deactivating the saber immediately as he sees the old eyes, the same eyes he knew before – the sleepy eyes of a pupil, of a lost boy desperate to belong somewhere, desperate to be accepted, pleading to be forgiven for the crime he didn't commit. Eyes that resembled his own sister's so much.

A frightened boy – whose master failed him miserably and unpardonably. Something almost resembling a wailing, sorrowful prayer to the Force comes his way, and it's coming from Ben: _Force, please, help me._ Luke lowers the saber, utterly defeated and broken, as all the regret that he tried to suppress drowns him like a flood.

But fear soon vanishes from Ben's face and mindless rage storms in.

"Ben, no!" Luke screams as the Force between them tenses, thickens and grows into a hurricane.

Anakin's lightsaber in his hand, Ben clashes with his master and uncle – on Luke's part, it's self-defense. On Ben's – it's a desperate counter-attack.

The young man sends the whole hut against the Jedi master – stones hurled in the air like they're dust, followed by rocks that surround the hut and the temple, followed by anything that comes into the range of Ben's vindictive wrath.

The Jedi master has never encountered rage this bitter – not even his own, not even Vader's. Darkness entombs him and the light disappears from his consciousness. There is a strange comfort in his last moments – he feels the age of the Jedi will soon come to an end, and perhaps, that will be the ultimate Balance all oracles were talking about.

" _There is no Death – only Force."_

* * *

Jedi students jump from their light sleep in horror as the ground beneath them trembles and the walls around them shake violently.

Kora, Jessa, Ceth, Arlunia, Gaman and Ehart wail in terror as they see Ben's hut reduced to nothing more than a burning pile of rubble, now resembling a funeral pyre. For a brief moment, they think something happened to Ben and rush to his aid.

But another figure appears before them and against the soaring flames of the hut behind him.

It's Ben. But it's Ben only by his name – everything else has disappeared into a dark abyss. They can sense it – they're connected to one another with an ever strengthening Force bond. All of them freeze on spot. _Where's Luke? Why is he not here?_

Deadly terror overcomes them as the realization dawns on them.

"We'll face him," Ehart says, rubbing away the tears from his freckled face, reaching out for his lightsaber.

The Jedi Killer sniffs them and is now striding toward them, completely unaffected by the mayhem he created.

He makes no haste – he doesn't have to. He'll cut them down one by one, before they even have the time to raise any substantial defense.

They made their choice, and so did he.

It is Kora who talks sense to the group first.

"No," she says and tenses, her emerald eyes reflecting the crimson blaze. She's a tough one: she knows when to start a fight and when to run. Her whole upbringing on the streets of Lothal prepared her for this, whereas the Jedi training has failed.

"Run," she utters. "I'll stop him. You run: find cover. Find Luke's X-wing and run."

"Kora," Ceth mumbles.

"Go, you idiots!" She screams. "We're the last Jedi in the galaxy now. If we're all dead, all hope is gone. Go!"

Dazed, they comply, sensing only instinctively how right she is.

The brave Twi'lek stands between them and that man that was once their comrade, her blazing blue saber held high above her head, strangely contrasting the crimson lights of the fire that threatens to swallow the whole Jedi village that once was their shared home.

As the last remaining Jedi struggle up the hill and to the temple, they see Kora being surrounded by seven figures altogether, and they know every last one of them – Irin, Dorn, Rennek, Korwin, Idiian and Iella. And there, far in front and before Kora, is their leader in the Dark Side, the man once known as Ben Solo.

Jessa can't bring herself to look behind. Temple. Temple is empty and still unaffected.

" _There is no Death – only Force,_ " Jessa tries to remember.

But credo dies out on her silent lips soon enough – she senses the disturbance in the Force, all the loyal Jedi do: a short wail and then an all-consuming darkness that follows.

Kora is struck down with a single blow of Anakin's blue saber. A faint breath escapes her lips.

"RUN."


	10. No escape

He, the Nameless One, the Jedi Killer, roams around the rubbles of his former residence like a beast, covered in Kora's blood. The blow he inflicted was violent, but not precise and it let the badly cauterized wound bleed excessively. He denied his followers the pleasure of slaughtering the useless Twi'lek themselves.

He didn't even try to bring her to their side – her resolve is single-minded and simple.

„You bunch of dirty losers," she hisses and clashes with the Jedi killer. She's strong and resilient, and doesn't falter to use some of her dirty street-wise tricks. Their sabers clashing, she spits their leader right in the eye and kicks him violently between his legs. But his pain tolerance is remarkable – probably one of the traits that Dark Side enhances – and he soon transforms the pain into strength. Her rage makes him only stronger and she knows it. The battle is over even before it started. She knows that his stern resolution to fight with her alone and not to simply cut her down with his treacherous comrades is not an act of compassion, but of pure and undiluted sadism.

„C'mon," she shrieks at him, her face covered with her own blood. „C'mon, you pitiful mother-f***er! End it already, you c*nt!"

And he indeed does, slicing her throat in a single blow that almost detaches her beautiful Twi'lek head from her shoulders. Even then, she doesn't die immediately. She gargles curses or words of the Jedi credo – it's all the same to them, anyway, as they leave her to her agonizing death.

„Take her saber", Jedi killer commands, licking her arterial blood from his fingers and his face. „Destroy it".

„But Master..." Korwin tries to protest at the destruction of such a powerful weapon, but soon chokes.

„Just do as I say," the leader retorts coldly and lets his grip fall.

Turning to Irin, his black eyes set ablaze with hatred, his lips curled up in disdain, he commands him and Irin shivers, remembering all that he's done against the master. His eyes glance back at dead Kora and his mind remembers the merciless stroke that practically halved her.

„Irin."

„Yes, My Lord?" Irin comes to his side, hunching down to appear as small as possible.

„Protect the rubbles," he hisses. „If he tries to come out again... stop him."

A futile task – everyone saw what happened and none of them detected any life from under the rubbles even after almost the whole night has passed – but Irin is now wise enough as not to provoke the Jedi Killer's wrath.

Whipping his head in the direction of the Temple, he sniffs the air. Anakin's saber feels heavy in his hand – it's split, just like he is. It is no stranger to carnages like this one. But this is still a Jedi sword – it murmurs sorrowful, irritating things to him. The damn thing pleads with him and wails in the same frequency with that Twi'lek's saber, reconstructed from Obi Van's own.

He howls at both of them. „Enough!" He screams and throws Anakin's saber far away from him. Plucking Kora's saber from dazed Korwin, he does the same.

(The remaining traitors shudder, fearing he has lost his mind. Who'll bring them the power they so craved for and were promised?)

Then, a sound of roaring engines breaks the deadly silence of the island.

This ship is of a kind none of them has ever seen before – it is an imposing black shuttle that folds its long wings up as it lands: raptorial, elegant and deadly. A squadron of Stormtroopers comes rushing out – the traitors are delighted. This is something they have heard only as war time stories as they were children.

But their leader seems unimpressed. He gestures at them to stay away and stay back as he strides forth. He knows exactly who he's expecting.

„Inquisitor," he snarls.

„My Lord Ren," the unnaturally tall humanoid in the peculiar armor grins and bows, mockingly. There is a crest resembling black sun on his shoulder-plate: everything that the Jedi Killer promised, is indeed unfolding as he predicted. The humanoid glances over Killer's shoulder and sees the rampage, the dead Twi'lek on the ground and the fire ablaze. "I see you started early."

"Skywalker hastened our plans, nothing more," the Jedi Killer answers wryly.

"Is he dead?" Inquisitor pierces Snoke's new agent with his gray and red eyes, typical of Pau'an race.

"Can you sense him?" The Killer replies in the same tone of voice.

Inquisitor holds and his nostrils widen a bit. He's unsatisfied – the boy strokes a nerve with him. He was nowhere near as strong as this wretched newly appointed Knight of Ren.

"No," Inquisitor finally replies, dryly. _He'll pay for this,_ he thinks.

"Good", the Knight replies. "Now, get us out of this Jedi rags. We can't go like this to the Supreme Leader."

With the help of the squadron and Inquisitors, they break through their defenses and into the temple. The slaughterhouse continues – Ehart falls first, with Arlunia soon to follow. Ceth and Gaman scatter around, bawling, as they have seen their comrades falling around them. They'll face the traitors on their own.

Jessa found the second Ahsoka's saber hidden in the temple and now rushes to the meditation room, its high windows overlooking the ocean. How that body of water appears peaceful, cold and unattached, in stark contrast to the demolition that is on its way inside. Jess shivers. The both moons of the planet have set behind the horizon – it is pitch-dark in the room, but she relied on her other senses more than on her vision all of her life, so she sneaks into the room as quietly and as flexibly as a cat.

If only she manages to stay alive long enough, get to the old X-wing on time and escape… but the traitors came rushing in too early, breaking their latches and their barricades like they were nothing more than house of cards.

Her heart stops. She was never strong, ever. She always considered herself weak. She had Kora to protect her, but even the tough Twi'lek used to chastise her for her softness. " _You have to toughen up, Jess, otherwise these buffoons will swallow you alive_ ", she used to grunt. Jessa admired Kora for her strength and her beauty. And now, she's gone. Her best friend is gone.

The little Tatooine girl curls up into a fetal position, sitting on her feet, and cries into her knees.

" _Force, help me,"_ she whispers in her mind.

There is a resounding bang at the door – she bolted them herself. They yelp as if they were alive, but resist the blow.

A new voice, a threatening and distorted voice with a disembodied quality to it comes from behind:

"Jessa Schimbke! We know you're inside! It's your last chance, Jedi – come with us or share the fate of your friends!"

The girl jumps to her feet and tenses. _Oh, if only I had the voice_ , she thinks. But her disadvantages are actually the virtue in the world of Jedi – that's what her dead Master told her, time and time again. She remains silent, but focuses in the Force.

" _I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me."_

Through the Force, she sees them all – the Stormtroopers, the Inquisitors – both things of the past that came back to haunt her. She sees six figures, all clad in black, and armors menacing and diverse. And she sees the man behind one of the armors, or at least the remnants of the man he was. Ben. It was Ben's voice. Even her refined hearing couldn't recognize his voice, distorted beyond recognition in that abominable mask.

And as she tries to gather all her resolve to fight them all and die honorably, like a Jedi should, she hears his old whisper in her head.

" _RUN,_ " he howls.

She doesn't have enough strength to reply. Perhaps, it wasn't even his voice. Perhaps he is altogether gone, and this is only her mind and her own nerves, tensed to a breaking point.

But whatever it is, the voice has a point. The self-sustaining instincts prevail. There is an opening in the floor of the meditation room that leads directly to the cliff.

The X-wing is hidden in the cave beneath the cliff.

She might even have the time to escape.

Tucking both of Ahsoka's sabers in her belt, the little girl finds the aperture in the floor and barely escapes through the narrow tunnel, wide enough to receive her small frame, but not the entire Order of the Knights of Ren.

Outside, she stumbles and falls on the slick rocks, almost losing one of the sabers after the violent fall. But she struggles back to her feet and flees to the edge of the cliff.

The rain that began only minutes before as a light shower now is being transformed into a relentless downpour. Her hair and clothes are soaked within minutes.

Only few hundred feet and she'll be free. She'll inform the Council about this. They'll come back and stop this evil. And then… Ben will be killed.

She loses breath and loses strength at the notion. _No,_ she thinks. _No. He was deceived, they all were._

 _There is still hope._

A not-so-distant buzz of a plasma beam stops her where she's standing. Jessa whips her head back and a silent scream forms on her lips.

They followed her to the cliff. One of the black-clad figures, wearing a hat resembling something from a very ancient Jedi tradition, falls on his knees, pierced from behind with a crackling, unstable, red blade.

"I told you, the girl is mine", the distorted voice growls from behind, as the dead body slips away from him.

" _Why don't you run, like I told you?"_ The same voice growls inside her head.

Jessa ignites both of her sabers. Their dim white light illuminates the space between them.

She will not run. It is not the way of the Jedi.

" _It ends now…"_ She whispers. _"Murderer."_

She doesn't know where this strength is coming from. She never fought like this, not once. The sabers in her hands sing and their strength is enhanced thousand fold compared to what she was used to with only one. There is a strange feeling that, somehow, these ancient blades recognize this exact same situation – like a major déjà vu, like they were already present here a long time ago.

She's being transformed into Ahsoka Tano, and he's Vader.

" _I don't mind your lineage, Ben,"_ she told him, timidly. She meant every single word.

But the damn macho snob in him couldn't bring himself to see her like anything else than an invalid – if she had Kora's beauty, or Ahsoka's stature, maybe he'd listen. But because she is just this insignificant half-blind mute with weird skin pigmentation, he perceives her only as something… pitiful. He doesn't listen to her, only smiles sorrowfully and with a flickering disdain in those damn, beautiful eyes of his.

 _Damn you, Ben,_ she thinks, as she pants under his attacks. _Your damn cock decided instead of you._

Her own vulgarity (Kora would be so proud) startles her and apparently, he read those thoughts too, because now he falters. She uses this hesitation and makes a remarkable advance toward him, even making him withdraw for a moment. Jessa manages to inflict a wound near his neck and on his hip. Remembering some of Kora's street-fight tactics, she kicks him in the stomach – something she'd never even think she'd do before. He staggers, howling, but is soon to recuperate – she spins back and lands with her back facing him, his saber stopping only inches above her shoulder, put to the hold by her two sabers.

She spins again and whirls – again, the fact she's so small and only seemingly frail is her actual advantage.

" _Schimbie."_

Oh, the damn, pleading voice. And her damn nickname, the only way he ever called her.

" _Please."_

She shudders and shrieks in her own mind.

" _Come with me. Stop this. Jedi are the true evil, the true decadence."_

Jessa's knees lose their strength, as she loses her focus and resolve. The unstable plasma beam burns her ribs and she recoils.

She remembers how Luke's cold demeanor hurt him, how he strained under the ever strict expectations of his uncle. She felt ashamed for being a sort of Luke's favorite, when Ben had to suffer. She would've done anything to spare him the pain. He was her first and only love.

Jessa cries silently.

 _Gods damn you,_ she thinks.

" _Help me build the new order_. _There will be no outcasts. No tears."_

She turns swiftly to look at the face that spoke these words. But there is no face – only that monstrous metal-cast mask.

There is a moment of utter silence and peace as she stands at the very edge of the cliff, the ground beneath her threatening to collapse even under her minute weight and under the gushes of rain and wind.

Eventually, she lowers her sabers.

Far behind them, she senses all of her friends are gone – she is the only one Jedi remaining in the world, in the darkness before the sunrise, in this downpour with the Jedi Killer.

She smiles at the irony of all of this.

"No," she speaks but her unused vocal cords make no sound.

" _Schimbie."_ He howls again.

" _No,_ " she speaks again, and into his mind this time. And at that, she makes the last desperate attempt against the Jedi Killer. They clash again – but the menacing red plasma beam goes straight through her chest like it's nothing. For a second, the perfectly cauterized wound doesn't even sting.

She feels nothing – no weariness, no pain, no rage: only compassion.

She smiles at him, again. Touching that cold, expressionless mask, she whispers into his mind:

" _I should've kissed you when I had the chance._ "

The tainted amber plasma beam dies out and retracts back into its hilt.

The Jedi Killer recoils as his last victim falls down and over the cliff.

The ends of her white Jedi robes remain on the surface of the restless waters for only a split second, dancing on the waves like a small bird, and then they're gone as well.

And with them, the last remaining tatters of his humanity are drowned.


	11. Death and the Maiden

**Death and the Maiden**

This will be his shuttle one day. He stares through the window as the ship breaks from the hyper-jump with remarkable smoothness. All the vehicles he ever used were built by the New Republic and by the Resistance – shaky, growling, howling trash. He remembers the "Falcon"… Solo making etchings on the door to indicate his growth over the years…

The blood he tasted is bitter and revokes myriad of memories and shattered hopes and fear and pain with which its owner ended her life. Something in him is set on fire with envy. Everyone has an easy way out, except him. He'd welcome the other half of the Jedi pupils, and kill these miscreants he's stuck with instead. Irin is probably the most loyal to him now – and what a joke that is.

They are on their way to the First Order's base in the Unknown Regions. He is eager to meet with Snoke. He'll erase the remnants of the weak fool Ben Solo that still lingers in him, causing him an irritating, useless sort of pain.

But first they make a stop on Ord Martell.

"Supreme Leader's orders," the Inquisitor grins, and bows to him again. He follows the creature like an automaton. The planet… he remembers it from Solo's tales, and only fragmentary. A littered planet, full of criminals, pirates and Imperial refugees. Those who weren't positioned highly in the Empire were left here to rot. Rumor has it he atmosphere of the planet was toxic and induced dementia after longer exposure.

Realizing just where they're headed, Kylo Ren frowns. It is demented, indeed.

A tavern and a brothel above it.

And this is not the first time the Inquisitor visits this establishment, as clearly testified by the reactions of the owner and of the prostitutes. _No wonder the Empire has collapsed before that Jedi and rebel scum,_ he thinks and clenches his fists, tensing his new gloves to a breaking point. Stench of cheap booze, of lust and of bad food permeates even the filters of his mask. He glances over his shoulder at other Knights of Ren.

Knights – what a preposterous title for these half-lives. Half of them already removed their helmets with an eagerness that he finds insulting under the circumstances.

"Easy now, men," Inquisitor holds them behind with a gesture. "Respect the hierarchy. Let the Master choose first."

Damn Pau'an laughs at his own joke.

„Our friend here is untried." The Inquisitor gestures at Kylo Ren, and then grins lasciviously. „Be gentle to him, ladies."

He's so tired and almost insane that he has no energy left to feel self-conscious or ashamed. Or to lash out and swipe them all out.

„Which one is to your own liking, My Lord?" The Inquisitor turns to him with his eyes of red and gray and sneers. He makes the title sound as mockingly as it is physically possible.

A Jedi killer. He can practically hear his mother's lamentations from across the galaxy. She rushes to the first X-wing to track him down and bring him back, but a younger man, a pilot most loyal to her prevents her from the suicidal mission. She slaps him in the face and buries her fists in his chest, incidentally reading his name-tag as she does. „He is my son! My boy… Dameron!" Her husky voice breaks with rage and anguish. And then she collapses into his arms, sobbing.

 _Good man._ Who knows what would happen had she somehow come to his side. _It is too late, mother._

„The Twi'lek," he says in a hoarse voice. His feverish eyes dart from her beautiful and sad features onto another one. Pale blonde, almost silver-haired. And that's all the similarity. The woman licks her lips and beholds him in all his height and muscles. „And you. The blond girl."

The demonic laughter around him becomes an incessant howl.

„Our Master was famished all his life," Korwin laughs wildly. „Feed him well, ladies."

Inquisitor throws money at females. He doesn't spare his purse. War money. Weapons' trade. He'll bring them back to business. He'll feed the Dark Side with all his means and all energies. He'll bring them war they so craved for: he asked for it and Snoke will not fail to deliver. Dorn smacks the blonde girl's ass and she giggles lecherously, while the Twi'lek just stands there, absent-mindedly. He should probably punish Korwin and Dorn for their insolence – but he's so weary of the bloodshed. And he's not even started.

* * *

His fingers tight around woman's throat, he hisses to her face: "Kiss me."

He remembers vaguely there's a sort of unspoken agreement on non-kissing in her profession, but the sheer look of terror on her pretty face tells him she'll do whatever he demands, money or not, unspoken social agreements or not.

The feeling is as vacuous and as emotionless as he expected. He wants to extract something from her, something he knows can't be found in this place. He bites on her lower lip and draws her blood until she squirms and yelps in pain. He stops her movements, wedging his knee between her legs, crushing her hands with his. The elementary instinct of bodies pressed against each other instigates some reaction in him and in her: and the energy of her many lustful nights pours from her blood, so he quickens. One of his hands let go of her and find her opening, sufficiently moist and ready. He goes in.

He then leaves her lips and howls at the sensation of her walls closing around him. It isn't altogether unpleasant – it even brings a sort of numbness, oblivion, and a relief.

But again, the relief is short-termed.

"You'll be paid for your… damages," he barks to her dazed, flustered face. "Go to your Inquisitor and tell him I sent you."

Girl's eyes grow wider, but she quickly scrambles into her torn clothes and scurries off through the door.

Crawling on his hands and knees like an animal, he goes to Twi'lek, who lets him climb on top of her. Beautiful and sad sapphire colored eyes. He takes her oval face into his hand and inspects her.

"If you want to leave, run now," he recites again the same damn text he's been reciting the night before.

She shakes her head.

"No, it's already been paid," she says softly.

Indeed, both of them were bought for a blood-price. But she doesn't mind about the money… there is something else on play here, and he can't exactly put his finger on it. The mystery draws him in and manages to keep his thoughts at least in some kind of order and focus he lost days ago.

"Do you know Kora Rhysode of Lothal?" He howls.

"No," the female responds softly.

"She was a Jedi," he continues. This woman, this humanoid is no stranger to sorrow – her eyes now definitely inspire something in him, and now he can't let her go even if he wanted to. "She had a great potential. I killed her. She was Twi'lek, just like you."

She smiles bitterly at him, showing the set of naturally beautiful, shining teeth. "My race is especially prone to death, My Lord."

"But not you," he says to her, mesmerized for a moment with her beautiful despair.

"No, not me," she answers and sighs. The movement of her ribs and her flesh and her breasts entices him. Slowly, she wraps her legs around him and then rubs her face against his palm and sucks on his thumb until he shivers. And then she stops to look up into his eyes and to find again something that makes her speak further. "Until you prove it otherwise, My Lord."

She is desperate. Trapped. She's been living in the state of utter despair for almost her whole life. She weeps over her fate in short spans of time she's left alone. Born into the life of slavery. No one in the whole galaxy to turn to, to come back to. Just like… someone. He can't remember who. Her face disappeared from his memory in that carnage. There was a Light there, and now there's only darkness. Blood washed all of it away.

"Would you like me to kill you, Twi'lek?" He says the next most demented thing he's ever uttered in his entire existence.

She doesn't respond – at least not with words. She kisses him and this is like the new world to him. She kisses him long and gently, probably like she'd kiss her loved one had she gotten the chance. Her tender hands close around him and caress his back and his neck, detangle his unruly hair, stroke his face and his ears. She leads him to between her legs and rubs herself against him until he's stiff again. They move against each other slowly and with compassion. She's comforting him the best way she knows how – and he'll return the favor.

The blonde is completely forgotten.

When she's back to fetch her friend and kick that brute out of her bed-chamber, the Twi'lek is lying peacefully on her side. That beast is already gone. Good.

"C'mon, Sei," the blonde exclaims crudely. "Can't be that the boy has exhausted you that much. He's big, but not that big."

Blonde frowns and makes an awkward movement to avoid rubbing the soreness between her legs.

"C'mon, you Twi'lek wh*re," she yells again, irritated. She loses money because of this stupid…

But then something attracts her attention. The Twi'lek is not breathing. She is dead, lying on her side with her eyes closed and something resembling a smile of relief on her lips.

Strangled, but without visible marks.


	12. Making of the Master

**Making of the Master**

 _(Synopsis: both Luke and Ben are one step closer to becoming the Masters they wanted or needed to be. Rey wakes up to a feeling something terrible has happened. Also, the final chapter.)_

The Starkiller Base – Kylo Ren inspects the new, yet distinctly familiar orb in construction as they are being pulled into its belly with a powerful tractor beam. It is imposing, although strangely quaint as well - only this time, its size surpasses multi-fold even the Second Death Star.

Inquisitor that served Snoke for many centuries now is sliding peacefully before him, completely self-assure and content in his own supremacy. This change in power dynamics certainly didn't please him – but he was for now standing delighted at the fact that his potential opponent was so, as he put it, _untried._

Snoke's face is disfigured, although something about the ancient creature tells Kylo Ren he was once a beautiful one. His disfigurement has something to do with the Light Side and with the Jedi – no wonder the creature harbors such intense hatred for the order.

"Knights of Ren," Snoke says in his frail, old voice. "Welcome… at last. Old things always have to make way to the new ones. That is the only way to progress."

Inquisitor stands at the side with a sort of idle arrogance and complete assuredness. The saber he gave Kylo Ren is an ancient one – a Mandalorian design – but it changed its owner many times over and laid unused for at least a century before his hand touched it. It is a bunch of technological rubbish that spits and coughs plasma beam – the Inquisitor was allowed to pick it himself. It was a statement. A warning. _I've seen many hot-heads like you, boy_. _No need to waste kyber crystals on disposable goods._

It gives the Jedi Killer an idea, if the violent electrical storm in his brain can be called one.

"If I may have the liberty, Supreme Leader," Kylo Ren replies coyly and makes a low, ceremonial bow before Snoke.

The alien is apparently slightly startled when he reads Kylo Ren's intent, but obliges to him readily.

"Of course, Lord of the Knights of Ren," he responds and makes a hand gesture of approval.

Before he has time to raise his light-saber or to beg, the Inquisitor is gutted from waist to neck with a single violent blow of the lightsaber.

 _Not so bad for a Mandalorian design after all,_ Kylo Ren muses as he rose the imperfect beam to his face. Through its amber-hazed light, his peripheral vision sees his Knights. The bastards probably counted on Inquisitor to make a much needed buffered zone between them and him, the madman.

The blood gushed and splattered over the floor, walls and the surrounding Knights of Ren – the sheer speed and brutality left them stunned. No brotherhood and no camaraderie bind them, they realize it only now in its full extent – only hatred for the Jedi and unbridled lust for power.

Snoke smirks.

"Next time," he says wryly. "Do it… cleanlier."

* * *

His feet dangling over the floor, he feels the life is being drained out of him.

Snoke was never explicit about the details of his training, but this doesn't come as surprise. He'd gladly scream his pain for the whole galaxy to hear, but then his darkening brain remembers everything. Every single detail of the slaughterhouse. Jessa's silent red eyes pleading with him.

Instead of howling his pain out, he remains mute, like her.

Snoke releases the grip and he falls like dead weight on the metal floor. With peripheral vision, he sees Irin. He would expect that punk to gloat over this, but no – he is almost as pale as he is. Then he folds in two and vomits violently at the sight. Other Jedi turncoats are not far from, as testified by their pasty faces.

 _This is what you wanted, brethren_ , he says to himself. The cold metal floor feels like that Twi'lek's embrace.

Even Snoke shows sign of surprise and satisfaction.

„Good, young Master Ren," he says, reclining in his vast throne. „That was very good indeed."

He has a second to recuperate before the lighting strikes him down and pulls him under, deep into the Dark Side. There is no other way to survive this, if he wants to survive at all, that is. He wanders into the darkness and dwells there, feeling every cell of his body transforming into pure pain.

The Light Side is shut off for him, he can sense it acutely. Like pulling out all of his teeth at once, without the painkiller. Strangely enough, the darkness now seem so welcoming. An escape from the pain of the living.

 _I will not survive this_ , he thinks and finds a perverted sort of contentment in this. But Snoke catches on his resignation and subsides. Kylo Ren feels as if his whole skin has been ripped off of him in one blow.

„Oh, no," Snoke sneers at him. „It will not go the way you think. I will keep my end of the bargain. Rise, Master of the Knights of Ren."

 _The creature is mad_ , he thinks. _Completely demented. I can't get up._

The Force from the Dark Side user lifts him up to his feet. He staggers and falls on his one knee. A true knight, indeed. Blood drips from his nostrils and he smears it lazily across his face. Its taste is putrid and it wakes up his senses.

But Snoke will not spare him one single blow.

„Luke," Snoke says. „He is alive, Master Ren."

The misshapen giant's words are both those of mockery and threat. He is both dissatisfied and enticed. He sees the master Jedi and his former pupil almost as nothing more than two rabid curs ready to rip each other throats off.

„That is impossible," Kylo Ren says in hoarse, dark voice. „I saw man burried under tones of stone rubbles. I burnt the temple and all its surroundings to the ground. No one could have survived that. Not even him."

Another bolt strikes.

„Do you question my authority?" The voice growls, dissipating into millions of shrieks. „Or do you protect your uncle still, Ben Solo?"

He is an animal being flayed alive in millions of agonizingly slow motions.

„No," he screams back and this is the only truth he is certain of. „Luke Skywalker must die."

* * *

But as the words leave his lips and as Snoke loosens his grasp, something inside him ignites. A faint memory, and the faintest of lights – at first, he remembers Leia. The whole planet he's on is one giant weapon built with the sole purpose of destroying the New Republic. He mourns her and her defeat, but her mind is closed for him. She considers him dead, as she considers her own brother.

This light is that other light. Her – the girl. His mind is probably that broken that he hallucinates, seeing her as she enters the Throne Room, comes to him, and then kneels. He closes his eyes tightly, and then re-opens them. But she's still there.

Illuminated by the same old light, her features solidify before him and he observes her brown eyes with fireflies of gold and emerald: brave, strong and merciful, pleading with him. Wide sun-kissed face with chiseled, noble features: a face that inspires only trust and hope.

" _Ben, please, no,"_ she says, looking down at him, beautiful doe eyes misted with tears of sorrow and compassion. Someone could mistake her appearance for a soft one – but there is a definite strength within her that draws him in as much as her compassion and her tears.

But as soon as he reaches out with his hand to her, she's gone – out from the room and out from his memory.

Snoke makes a grotesque grimace on his otherwise solemn and even attentive face – a grimace Kylo Ren fails to acknowledge, his mind suffocating in red fog.

Despite all the terrifying torture he endured, he struggles to his feet and howls:

"The saber is tainted and weak."

Is he referring to himself? He can't say.

"I need to bleed it… again."

Now he is definitely talking about himself. He needs war. He needs to bleed… again. His knowledge of bleeding the light saber from the Dark Side influence will now serve in reverse.

"Of course," Snoke says.

His training has only just begun.

* * *

This is not an afterlife. This is his tomb, and he's buried alive.

Remembering only vaguely what has happened, he finds his mind a place of roaring dissatisfaction at the fact that he is, indeed, still living.

He has no other choice now but to break free, his self-preservation instincts taking hold over his concussed brain.

Using all his strength and all his focus, he makes a slow and painful ascend up to the surface where once his nephew's hut was.

The long night of the planet is so pitch-dark that, for a brief moment, he thinks he's still underground. The air is changed, but it's even worse than that underneath him, under the rubbles and collapsing dust – acrid smoke filling the atmosphere and his strained lungs.

The Jedi master scrambles to the sight of the old Temple engulfed in soaring flames. Confused, weakened by three-days long dwelling under the earth, he can barely grasp the whole scope of the immolation that occurred. But soon, all the tragedy comes flooding in – almost half of his students are killed in cold blood and by Ben's hand, and then incinerated in the fire. And his Tatooine favorite lies in deadly calm of the ocean. The rest have sided with Ben Solo and left the planet in haste.

He tries to make a painful yell of a wounded animal, but his injured and dry throat makes no sound.

He falls to his knees, eyes full with thickened tears of an old, helpless man and with the dust and ashes that swirl around him.

There is no living soul on the island. Leia – his heart breaks in an instant as he remembers his sister. He failed her. He failed her completely and beyond redemption. He can't go to her – what would they have to say to each other? Considerable time shall pass before any news of the destruction reach her and the rest of the populated galaxy. This is an advantage – if there is any advantage he can even think of in this moment – one he can't pass.

The old familiar buzzing comes from his side – his old droid, R2D2, comes rolling in. Bitter, faint smile escapes Luke.

"The X-wing," his voice crackles and fades, but the machine is knowledgeable. It made sure to move the X-wing from its former location before the traitors could grab hold of it. It's untouched.

He thinks of his students' sabers, but his own resignation decides instead of him – may they rest here, scattered, destroyed or forgotten where they are. If the Force wills it – and he smiles again, almost deranged and with outmost bitterness – they will be found again and by worthy set of hands.

R2D2 kept the catalogue of all of his maps and all of his findings on the first Jedi temple on the Ahch-to, planet rumored to be located somewhere in the Unknown Regions.

"We must hurry," he whispers to the droid who whistles back long and sorrowful.

"I know", Luke says. "I'll leave you with the Resistance. You'll be safe there."

Priming his X-wing, Luke answers to his inquisitive droid:

"No, not me. I have to leave. It is the only way."

He has no time for sardonic introspection. His hideous arrogance is standing naked before him – the same old arrogance, the Skywalker arrogance that gave birth to the most powerful Sith in the galaxy _. I failed him,_ he thinks. _I failed them all._

 _I will shut myself from the Force_. _It can be done with appropriate meditation on Ahch-to, if the legends are true._

 _The Darkness can't strive without the Light – without it, it will soon die out. Force will not allow such imbalance._

He dares not to look back as his X-wing hovers over the desolate temple island.

* * *

At the other side of the galaxy, somewhere in its backwater regions, a girl, a part of an exploited scavenging population, wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweat to a distinct feeling that something truly terrible and truly tragic has happened somewhere and somehow.

Despite her tender age, she's strong, daring and used to day-to-day danger. She is no stranger to killing in self-defense, which gives her something of that much needed bad reputation on Jakku: but this sensation leaves her trembling under many woven blankets that shield her from the freezing cold of the nights in the desert.

It's her parents, perhaps – but as she thinks of the possibilities, her eyes start watering on their own. No, it must be the exhaustion and grueling routine, nothing else. A routine ever so grueling that it even silenced the voice – that voice.

She makes herself go to sleep again, discarding her terror as nothing more than an illusion of her tensed nerves, but she remains awake right up until the dawn, and perfectly incapable of dozing off for even fifteen minutes.

Pressing her temples, she tries to remember the words, the voice and all its sensitive and kind modulations.

" _Wait for me here, sweetheart. I'm coming back for you. I promise."_


End file.
